Eroticism
Eroticism (from the Greek ἔρως, eros—"desire") is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, sculpture, photography, drama, film, music or literature. It may also be found in advertising. The term may also refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts. As French novelist Honoré de Balzac stated, eroticism is dependent not just upon an individual's sexual morality, but also the culture and time in which an individual resides.Balzac, "The Physiology of Marriage" (1826), trans. Sharon Marcus (1997), Aphorism XXVI, 65Grande, L., "Laws and Attitudes towards Homosexuality from Antiquity to the Modern Era", Ponte 43:4-5 (1987), pp. 122-129Gauthier, Albert, "La sodomie dans le droit canonique medieval" in L'Erotisme au Moyen Age: Etudes presentees au IIe Colloque de l'Institut d'Etudes Medievales, 3-4 Avril 1976, ed. Roy, Bruno (Montreal: Ed. Aurore, 1977), pp. 109-122 Definitions Because the nature of what is erotic is fluid,Evans, David T., Sexual Citizenship: The Material Construction of Sexualities, (New York: Routledge, 1993) early definitions of the term attempted to conceive eroticism as some form of sensual or romantic love or as the human sex drive (libido); for example, the Encyclopédie of 1755 states that the erotic "is an epithet which is applied to everything with a connection to the love of the sexes; one employs it particularly to characterize...a dissoluteness, an excess".Encyclopédie (1755), quoted in Lynn Hunt ed., Eroticism and the Body Politic (London 1991) p. 90 However, because eroticism is wholly dependent on the viewer's culture and personal tastes pertaining to what, exactly, defines the erotic,Foster. Jeannette H., Sex Variant Women in Literature: A Historical and Quantitative Survey 2nd ed., (New York: Vantage Press, 1956) (repr. Baltimore: Diana Press, 1975)Weinberg, M., & A. Bell, Homosexuality: An Annotated Bibliography, (New York: 1972) critics have often confused eroticism with pornography, Andrea Dworkin going so far as to say: "Eroticism is simply high-class pornography; better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer." This confusion, as Lynn Hunt writes, "demonstrate the difficulty of drawing...a clear generic demarcation between the erotic and the pornographic": indeed arguably "the history of the separation of pornography from eroticism...remains to be written".Hunt, "Introduction", in Hunt ed., Eroticism p. 4 Biological Evolution Whereas traditionally eroticism has been dealt with in relation to culture and its pornographic outcomes, current evolutionary psychology shows how eroticism has shaped the evolution of human nature. Eroticism is defined as the way humans transform sexuality into a mental activity that results in pleasure for its own sake. The ability to envision sexual arousal as a medium of introspection about feelings and thoughts that transcends mere procreative animal sexuality seems unique to humans. It is thus that the transformation of the sexual impulse into erotic creativity can be considered a central factor in the process of human mental evolution. Psychoanalytical approach by French illustrator Édouard-Henri Avril]] For a psychoanalytical definition, as early as FreudDollmore, Jonathan, Sexual Dissidence: Ausgutine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991) psychotherapists have turned to the ancient Greek philosophy's "overturning of mythology" as a definition to understanding of the heightened aesthetic.Hunt, "Introduction", in Hunt ed., Eroticism p. 13 For Plato, Eros takes an almost transcendent manifestation when the subject seeks to go beyond itself and form a communion with the objectival other: "the true order of going...to the things of love, is to use the beauties of earth as steps...to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty"."The Symposium", in Benjamin Jowett trans, The Essential Plato (1999) p. 746 French philosophy Modern French conceptions of eroticism can be traced to The Enlightenment,Coward, D.A., "Attitudes to Homosexuality in Eighteenth Century France", Journal of European Studies 10, pp. 236 ff. when "in the eighteenth century, dictionaries defined the erotic as that which concerned love...eroticism was the intrusion into the public sphere of something that was at base private".Hunt, "Introduction", in Hunt ed., Eroticism p. 3 and p. 5 This theme of intrusion or transgression was taken up in the twentieth century by the French philosopher Georges Bataille, who argued that eroticism performs a function of dissolving boundaries between human subjectivity and humanity, a transgression that dissolves the rational world but is always temporary,L'érotisme, by Georges Bataille, Paris (1957: UK publication 1962) ISBN 978-2-7073-0253-3 as well as that, "Desire in eroticism is the desire that triumphs over the taboo. It presupposes man in conflict with himself".George Bataille, Eroticism (Penguin 2001) p. 256 For Bataille, as well as many French theorists, "Eroticism, unlike simple sexual activity, is a psychological quest...eroticism is assenting to life even in death".Bataille, Eroticism p. 11 Non-heterosexual , late 19th-century subtle lesbian erotica (National Museum in Warsaw).]] Queer theory and LGBT studies consider the concept from a non-heterosexual perspective, viewing psychoanalytical and modernist views of eroticism as both archaicMorton, Donald, ed., The Material Queer: A LesBiGay Cultural Studies Reader, (Boulder CO: Westview, 1996) and heterosexist,Cohen, Ed, Talk on the Wilde Side: Towards a Genealogy of a Discourse on Male Sexualities, (New York: Routledge, 1999) written primarily by and for a "handful of elite, heterosexual, bourgeois men"Flannigan-Saint-Aubin, Arthur. "'Black Gay Male' Discourse: Reading Race and Sexuality Between the Lines". Journal of the History of Sexuality 3:3 (1993): 468-90. who "mistook their own repressed sexual proclivities"Aries, Philippe & Andre Bejin, eds., Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985; orig. pub. as Sexualities Occidentales, Paris: Editions du Seuil/Communications, 1982) as the norm.Bullough, Vern L., "Homosexuality and the Medical Model", Journal of Homosexuality 1:6 (1975), pp. 99-110 Theorists like Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick,from Abelove, Henry, Michele Aina Barale, and David Halperin, eds., The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, (New York: Routledge: 1993) Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick: Epistemology of the closet, 45 Gayle S. Rubinfrom Abelove, Henry, Michele Aina Barale, and David Halperin, eds., The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, (New York: Routledge: 1993) Gayle S. Rubin: Notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality, 3 and Marilyn Fryefrom Abelove, Henry, Michele Aina Barale, and David Halperin, eds., The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, (New York: Routledge: 1993) Marilyn Frye: Some reflections on separatism and power, 91 all write extensively about eroticism from a heterosexual, lesbian and separatist point of view, respectively, seeing Eroticism as both a political forceMarshall, John, "Pansies, Perverts and Macho Men: Changing Conceptions of Male Homosexuality", in Kenneth Plummer, ed., The Making of the Modern Homosexual, (London: Hutchinson, 1981), 133-54 and cultural critiqueFone, Byrne R.S., "Some Notes Toward a History of Gay People", The Advocate no. 259 (Jan 25, 1979), pp. 17-19 & no. 260 (Feb 28, 1979), pp. 11-13 for marginalized groups, or as Mario Vargas Llosa summarized: "Eroticism has its own moral justification because it says that pleasure is enough for me; it is a statement of the individual's sovereignty".Mangan, J. A. "Men, Masculinity, and Sexuality: Some Recent Literature". Journal of the History of Sexuality 3:2 (1992): 303-13 Audre Lorde, a Caribbean-American writer and out-spoken feminist talks of the erotic being a type of power being specific to females. "There are many kinds of power ... The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feelings". In "The Uses of the Erotic" within Sister Outsider, she discusses how erotic comes from sharing, but if we suppress the erotic rather than recognize its presence, it takes on a different form. Rather than enjoying and sharing with one another, it is objectifying, which she says translates into abuse as we attempt to hide and suppress our experiences. See also References Category:Human sexuality Category:Concepts in aesthetics Category:Video